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Working the Bay: Black Watermen of the Chesapeake
| Article
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11704 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1994 |
1,870 Words |
| Author
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Fred B. Scott
Fred B. Scott, retired from the U.S. Department of Education,
is a free-lance writer based in Maryland. |
Early one morning, if you are a curious sort, sit quietly beside the Chesapeake Bay, or one of its many creeks or rivers. Stare into the ebbing darkness and listen. If fortune is with you, you may hear some solitary waterman in quest of the blue crab. You will likely hear him before you see him.
The solitary crabber's oars touch the waters softly as his skiff glides along his trotline. At each marker, he raises the trotline with one hand and with the other scoops up a blue crab, trapped in the net.
Seeing and hearing the near-ritual inspires you to reflect on the millions of blue crabs that have been harvested in the Chesapeake. By the time the sun burns through the last shreds of darkness, you realize that you have witnessed a small, daily adventure, one that has been practiced for ages by black watermen along the Chesapeake.
Black watermen are an independent group and are proud of their lengthy association with the Chesapeake.
Captain James Weeks was raised on the bay's breezes and brackish spray. As a boy, he explored the creeks and rivers that feed the Chesapeake and navigated long runs up and down its waters. He was introduced to the waterman trade nearly seventy years ago by his grandfather.
As a young man, Weeks worked on the old sailboats known as skipjacks, traveling as far as Delaware. Later, he skippered his own power-driven workboats. Weeks was a strong, independent man, confident and proud of being a waterman.
Weeks retired in 1976, but he did not give up his waterman ways. He tended to his private dock, addressed the needs of several boats moored there, and continued to tinker, now and then, with ailing engines.
Every day, without fail, he monitored his marine radio. If you were a boater in trouble, chances were that Weeks, sitting in his kitchen drinking coffee and smoking cigarillos, would hear your signals. If no one responded to the distress call, Weeks would get on the phone, relaying the news of a boater in danger to authorities.
Captain Ben Dennis is a third-generation black waterman. A waterman since his boyhood, he is a big, strong man. His smile tells you that, despite his hard work, he is a gentle man, too.
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